Instant ice packs are a quick solution to provide the cooling benefits of hot and cold therapy when soothing coolness and swelling reduction are required. Steroplast’s Sterofreeze Instant Ice Pack is commonly used to treat injuries and reduce swelling in the sports and physiotherapy industries.
We will unpack how instant ice packs work and explain the science behind these versatile and convenient products.
Instant Ice Packs: How Do They Work?
So, how do instant ice packs work?
Instant ice packs have been specially developed to become cold when agitated, making them the perfect piece of first aid equipment to apply to an injured or swollen area to provide pain relief and limit the damage.
Instant ice packs are essentially sealed plastic bags filled with liquid that, when agitated and mixed together, reacts and becomes cool. This unique instant ice pack chemical reaction is safely contained inside the pack which becomes cold quickly as the heat around it is absorbed.
The liquid inside the cold pack is water. Inside the water is another plastic bag or tube containing ammonium-nitrate fertiliser, specially selected because it reacts with water. When you hit or bend the cold pack, it breaks the tube so the fertiliser comes out and mixes with the water. As the two chemicals combine inside the bag, an endothermic reaction quickly takes place, meaning that the pack begins to feel cold to the touch and absorbs heat. The temperature of the solution falls to about 1–2 degrees celsius for 10 to 15 minutes until the chemical reaction is over.
What is an Endothermic Reaction?
To understand the science behind the instant ice pack, endothermic/exothermic reactions need to be explained. Simply put, endothermic reactions are chemical reactions in which the reactants absorb heat energy from the surroundings to form products, whereas an exothermic reaction causes the chemicals that are combined to release heat.
Endothermic reactions, like that of an instant ice pack, lower the temperature of their surrounding area, creating a cooling effect.
Scientists widely accept that when a chemical bond is broken, it is usually accompanied by a release of energy. Alternately, the formation of chemical bonds can require an input of energy, which can be in various energy forms such as heat, light, or electricity. In this case, the chemical reaction that happens between water and ammonium-nitrate fertiliser inside an instant ice pack requires a heat supply, resulting in a drop in temperature in its surrounding areas.
In exothermic reactions, the chemical bond breakage causes a release of heat energy, and an increase in temperature.
Steroplast Healthcare Limited
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You can rest assured that everything Steroplast supply is of the highest quality, is tried and tested, comes complete with robust guarantees, gets delivered on time, and has been designed to meet the toughest UK, EU, and global standards.
